Rambouillet Peace Conference - Hawaii Pacific University

Boshkovich 11
Tito who was Croat. 17 Though it is still unclear why, Croats and Serbs could never live in
a harmony. It is not easy to find evidences of Serbian hostility toward Croats, but the
newest example of animosity between these two ethnic groups was in civil war of 1990‘s,
which ended in 1995 when Croats launched ―Operation Storm‖ in which 200,000
refugees escaped to Serbia and Bosnia, while ―In the days that followed Operation Storm,
property was destroyed and atrocities committed against those Serbs who remained.‖ 18
But much worst example for this hatred occurred in 1940‘s. Only in WWII,
Croats, which were Nazi allies, killed 700,000 Serbs (most of them in extermination
camp Jasenovac were Croats killed about 600,000 people 19 ).
Tito‘s regime changed the constitution in 1974, giving to this province all
attributes of republic except the name. Albanians took advantage of this by creating
ethnically clear of Serbs police, making them less important citizens without any possible
protection from Federal or Republic government. On the other side, Albanians took all
important positions in the Province government and courts. They developed a parallel
education system based on the Albanian language which was against the law. All these
things were unthinkable for Serbs in Albania, where they were forced during the time to
change their names so that they won‘t sound as Slovenes in addition to being forbidden to
be educated in their language. 20 Besides that, Albanian government took all their houses
17 Rit Nosotro, ―Josip Broz Tito: 1892-1980, Yugoslavian Dictator Who Succeeded with Communism,‖
HyperHistory Online, 2003, http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b2tito-josip-marshall.htm
18 Matt Prodger, ―Evicted Serbs Remember Storm,‖ BBC News, August 5, 2005,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4747379.stm
19 Yad Vashem Museum Online, http://www1.yadvashem.org/education/entries/English/29.asp
20 David J. Kostelancik, ―Minorities and Minority Language Education in Inter-war…‖ East European
Quarterly 30, no. 1 (1996): 81.